One of Denver’s most experienced and successful attorneys,
Craig Silverman, is joining one of Denver’s top law firms of Springer and
Steinberg, P.C. He is also well known as a radio show host on Saturday mornings
at 710 KNUS radio host and noted for his independent viewpoint. He launched his
legal career at the Denver District Attorney’s Office, prosecuting some of
Colorado’s and the nation’s highest profile criminal cases.
Prominent Denver Attorney Joins Law Firm: One of Denver’s most well-known attorneys, Craig Silverman, joins the prestigious Springer & Steinberg Law Firm.
In 1997, he partnered with David Olivas at Silverman and
Olivas, P.C., a well-known boutique law firm in the heart of Denver’s LODO
area. There, Silverman successfully represented hundreds of civil and criminal
defense clients. And now, Silverman is launching a new chapter in his legal
career at the law offices of Springer and Steinberg, P.C.
Silverman says, “I was most interested, flattered, and
excited about being recruited by Springer and Steinberg, P.C. Jeff Springer and
Harvey Steinberg have been good friends of mine for many decades. I’ve played
lots of sports with Jeff and plenty of poker with Harvey.”
Steinberg says, “I’ve known Craig for over 50 years. I
followed his career as a prosecutor and marveled at his success. I watched
Craig move into the world of civil practice and, as expected, his success there
rivaled his prior accomplishments as a prosecutor. Given the closeness of our
families, I am happy we will finally be able to join forces at the best and
most effective law firm ever.”
Springer echoes those sentiments. “Craig and I go way back,”
he says. “We’ve always respected Craig and his abilities as a trial lawyer and
fierce competitor. Craig is fun to be around and fits in perfectly at Springer
and Steinberg where we have a team approach to winning cases for our clients.
The law firm has close ties with the City of Glendale.
Springer has served as Glendale City Attorney for over a decade and has been
involved in Glendale’s remarkable development. Silverman points out he’s played
a role in Glendale as well, and in 2013 was hired to help screen applicants to
be the new Glendale Police Chief, a process which led to the hiring of Chief
Joe Hoskins.
You could say Silverman’s love affair with “courts” began in
the gym at Denver’s George Washington High School where he was a standout
basketball player, earning seven varsity letters in basketball, golf and
baseball. He continued his athletic career in college, setting a single season
scoring record at Colorado College, over 20 points a game.
Silverman’s Passion For “Courts” Started In High School: 1974 photo of Craig Silverman in action at George Washington High School where he was a unanimous All-City selection in basketball and golf.
In June 1980, following his second year at CU Law School, he
began work as an intern at the Denver District Attorney’s Office. He went on to
become a Chief Deputy DA. “I prosecuted many violent Denver criminals,”
Silverman recounts, “Including Quintin Wortham, the Capitol Hill Rapist, and
Frank Rodriguez, Denver’s only modern-day death penalty verdict.”
Following the 1993 “summer of violence” in Denver, Silverman
was the prosecutor in one of Denver’s highest profile murder cases. Shane Davis
and Stephen Harrington were convicted of brutally murdering Tom Hollar and
sentenced to life in prison plus 200 years. The two-week trial was televised
live on Court TV. Silverman explains, “Tom’s widow, Christina Hollar,
captivated good people everywhere as she bravely testified regarding the horror
of her husband Tom being shot dead at 11th and Corona as he tried, in vain, to
protect her from being carjacked.”
Silverman’s legal experience and engaging style were
appreciated by local and national media outlets. He regularly appeared on local
TV stations to provide expert analysis during the OJ Simpson murder case.
Another Denver attorney, Dan Caplis, was doing a daily afternoon radio show on
AM 760 covering the Simpson “Trial of the Century” and Silverman says, “He had
me on regularly which began our friendship that lasts to this day.” In fact,
the two started the Caplis and Silverman Show on KHOW Radio in 2004, a popular
afternoon drive radio show that lasted over eight years.
Silverman’s legal and media careers converged in 1996, after
he ran as an Independent candidate to unseat incumbent DA Bill Ritter.
Silverman says, “I lost my race for Denver DA in November 1996, and in December
1996 JonBenét Ramsey was murdered in her Boulder home. Media outlets called me,
and I again responded.” Silverman appeared on many network and national cable
TV shows and that continued through other Colorado cases including Columbine,
the Oklahoma City bombing trial, the Kobe Bryant case and the Aurora theater
massacre.
In 2014 he began the Craig Silverman Show which continues to
air every Saturday morning from 9 a.m. ’til noon on 710 KNUS radio. The
schedule suits Silverman perfectly. He says, “I relish the opportunity to recap
the week and express my thoughts about what happened, without having to worry
about any interference with my primary job. My work as a lawyer for my clients
is always my priority.”
Radio Host: Craig Silverman hosts a popular radio show on 710 KNUS Saturday mornings from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. He is noted for his independent viewpoint.
In fact, Silverman explains, “Preparation is critical to
putting on a great radio show and the same is true for putting together a
client’s best case. Teamwork and a fierce desire to fight for justice make it
happen at Springer and Steinberg.”
The firm is mid-sized with 30 some legal professionals
dedicated to helping clients. Steinberg is famous as a pre-eminent criminal
defense lawyer while Springer is an experienced and widely respected attorney
who leads a large legal team working on serious injury and wrongful death
cases.
Silverman says he will be focusing primarily on helping
victims of bad driving and other injury-causing misconduct. “Helping people who
have been victimized by the transgressions of others is what I most enjoy as an
attorney and is a natural extension of my work as a prosecutor.” Silverman
notes as a member of the Springer and Steinberg team, he won’t have to worry
about administrative responsibilities like he did at his own firm. “That means
more time with clients, preparing their cases and fighting for justice for our
clients.”
For more information or to contact Craig Silverman at Springer and Steinberg, call 303-861-2800 or csilverman@springersteinberg.com.
Wall Of Love: Jack Welner points to a photo of Lori Goldberg, his special friend. All around him is his “wall of love,” photos of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, evidence that — despite his grievous losses — Welner stayed open to life and love. His advice to people: “Don’t let your past ruin your future. Live life to the fullest.”
At 98, Jack Welner’s face shines with the eager ebullience
of a 6-year-old. His eyes twinkle with fun. That’s the kind of boy Welner was
back in Lodz, Poland — helpful, fun-loving, excited about life — and by all
accounts, that’s the kind of man he became. In between, however, came the
Holocaust, and — because Welner is Jewish — unimaginable suffering.
Through Auschwitz, Dachau, labor camps, a death march — how,
people ask, did you stay the same person? Looking back over the years, Welner
explains how he kept bitterness out of his heart and held onto the twinkle in
his eye.
Take This, You’ll Need It
Death Camp: The Auschwitz death camp was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II and the Holocaust. Jack Welner arrived at Auschwitz in 1944.
It’s not that Welner forgot what happened. He shares memories
so vivid, you are there: watching how fast the Germans turn a corner of Lodz
into a barbed wire ghetto; seeing guards shoot Jews in the ghetto streets “just
for practice”; pretending — along with the seven other family members crammed
into one room with no toilet or running water — that the beet leaves your
mother salted and fried taste just like herring.
“We were starving [in the ghetto],” recalls Welner. “Just
before we got on the train [for Auschwitz], we got a little piece of bread.
Late that night, we arrived. I helped mother down from the train. She still had
her bread. She pushed it into my hand. ‘Here. Take this. You’ll need it.’”
Welner’s eyes fill with tears. “Those were the last words my
mother said to me.”
Look For Luck
After the war, when Welner was in a safer place — Denver,
CO! — and heard “even a little bit of antisemitism” he’d speak up. “I left
Poland to get rid of SOBs like you, so you better shut up.”
“Later,” he adds, “we’d become friends.”
Young Boy: Thirteen-year-old Jacob Welniarz, who became Jack Welner in America, poses for a photo in his boyhood city of Lodz, Poland. He had no idea that in six years, his family would be torn apart and he would be sent to the Auschwitz death camp.
But back when hatred of Jews was law, Welner searched for small ways to survive. In a labor camp near Dachau, a guard kept beating Welner with a 2×4 so brutally, “I knew I would die if he kept it up … so I sank to the ground and began crying. Not so much from pain, but I had to … do something.”
Welner adds emphatically: “In my mind, I was saying, ‘I will survive you, you SOB!’”
Later on in that camp, “… my luck changed. A machine
operator took a liking to me. I was suffering from an ulcer. He let me lie
down. He brought me rinds of bread to eat.
“He saved my life,” concludes Welner, who, after the war,
traveled twice to Munich to bring food to that guard.
Welner was still able to feel empathy.
Many had lost that capacity.
“I had a cousin, blonde, she survived by working as a maid
in a Warsaw hotel, disguised as a Christian,” Welner recalls. “When the
[Warsaw] ghetto was burning, someone laughed, ‘Look, the bedbugs are frying.’
Her family was inside that ghetto and she had to stand there, crying, saying
nothing …”
Welner shakes his head. He tells how, upon arriving back in
Lodz after being liberated, the first words he heard from a Christian were,
“Oh, a lot of you Jews are still alive.”
L’Chaim (To Life)
Welner shares such memories seriously, like one delivering a
valuable package. Now one more person knows and will not forget. But he is not
inclined to dwell on or analyze the horror. Asked about antisemitism, Welner
shrugs. “That’s how it was. Always the Jew was the scapegoat.”
When the subject turns, however, to his three children, six
grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, Welner’s face lights up like a
100-candle birthday cake. He enthuses at length about each one. It glows when
he converses about travel or music. And when he sings.
Welner loves to sing.
Quilt: So moved by Welner’s visit and what he shared about his experience during the Holocaust, one school decided to make Welner a quilt. Each child created a square in the quilt that shows what they got from hearing Welner speak.
“I love Italian,” he
rhapsodizes. “I still remember songs from Italy [where he was in a DP camp].”
In the ghetto, Welner recalls, there was a Jewish composer
who wrote satiric songs. Welner sings one in Yiddish, then translates: “Such a
disaster, you have to eat every day, the stomach always wants more and more…
“We needed to laugh,” he recalls.
Welner adores jokes. Laughing uproariously (but never
ruining the punch line), Welner tells a joke about the cow from Minsk. The
farmer and the bull. The one where two friends enter a bakery: “‘Moishe, look
at that wonderful bagel!’ ‘Oh, but it’s got a big hole in the middle!”’
Optimist
“I see the bagel, not the hole,” Welner explains. “I’m an
optimist.”
At 31, Welner anticipated a happy future when he met a
beautiful girl, Adele. They married and moved to Denver. Seven years later,
Adele died, leaving Welner with three small children and a broken heart.
Welner moved to Israel for five years to be near his
sisters, then back to Denver, where he worked as a carpenter and raised his
kids. Despite the disappointment of a subsequent marriage not working out, “My
father always enjoyed life,” recalls Welner’s daughter Beverly. “Our home was
filled with love and laughter.”
As a Holocaust Survivor, Welner spoke to schools and groups
in Denver and surrounding areas. Then in 1995, the Shoah Foundation sent Lori
Goldberg to interview Welner.
The two connected.
“We became best friends, sharing life’s joys and challenges,” says Goldberg, who, coincidentally, in the first years of their relationship, saw Welner on Tuesdays.
“He was my Morrie,” she says, alluding to the book, Tuesdays with Morrie. “From Jack, I learned about courage, resiliency, hope, and love.”
My Motto
“Jack has taught me, no matter how difficult life can be, one should never give up hope, one should never stop loving,” said Goldberg.
“My motto,” Welner says, “is, ‘Don’t let the past ruin your
future. If you live in the past, you don’t have a future.’”
“I receive so much more from Jack than I could ever give,” says Welner’s caregiver, Linda Chambers. “It is an honor to know him. He will not allow hate to grow in his heart.”
